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Extrapolation of the Futura Project

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Thu, 2011-09-15 01:34

Alassalaur Alassalaur's picture

Extrapolation of the Futura Project

So, I've read the forums on and off for a while now, but been a member for about 5 minutes, and I have a question for people. Has anyone, GM or player, done any extrapolation on what happened in the simulspaces during the Futura Project? I don't believe I've missed anything in the books while scouring, although I may have missed things posted on the forums previously. When I started playing, my GM and I began to wonder what the simulspaces the Lost were in were like... maximum nurturing is mentioned, a monitored environment is mentioned, and then it goes into the problems, which suggest their own issues. When children started killing other children and then were restored from a backup, how was that explained in a way that kept the project 'nurturing'. When the punishments started to occur later, how did that go over? When the Lost finally left their simulspace environment, what was the transition like, going from their constructed nurturing world to the truth of post-Fall transhumanity. Tasked by my GM with expanding the Lost background as I chose, a number of ideas have bubbled up on what the simulspaces might be like, as well as other aspects of Lost culture. Obviously this could change from game to game, but I am curious how close, or far, from others we have come in my own game. Have I missed other people talking about this already? If I haven't, is anyone else actually interested in such thought experiments? I'm tempted to throw up the ideas that have been fleshed out so far to the homebrew forum to see what others think of them.

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Thu, 2011-09-15 03:12

Kyorou

Re: Extrapolation of the Futura Project

When, I read about it in the MRB, I envisioned the Project Futura simulspace as something akin to the Tranquility Lane virtual reality from Fallout 3, without the creepiness (well, at first, before it went Lord of the Flies). A bit cheesy, I know.

Tue, 2011-09-20 14:23

Rhyx

Re: Extrapolation of the Futura Project

By it's definition the Futura project was basically trying to create the next generation of human beings at an Autobahn speed. So what I always pictured was extremely intense and grueling learning sessions using cutting edge technology and simulspace. remember that this was after the fall, everybody was pretty much into the "protect the eggs mode" while trying to bolster humanity's ranks as quickly as they could. It's my experience that you can only do things well or fast never both. In survival mode humanity, or in this case the Cognite hypercorp, probably tried to cut corners, counting on later psychosurgery to tune up the problems. But I would think because of the stresses and the time tables and pressure most Lost would at the very least have some form of OCD or maybe even autism or other dissociative states without even having the titan virus. This mixed with the virus responsible for Psi simply lead to a series of psychotic breaks, the accelerated training being the stressor to an already fragile mental state. Like every experiment I suspect there was a control group and then minor (or major) changes made to every other crop of Lost in order to see what worked best. Nothing saves times like experimenting on your experiment. Now this next part is apocryphal and only applies to my game but you might like it. I always pictured that a Promethean would be interested in what the next step of humanity had been like and so along with 1,000,000 other intrests it kept a close eye of the Futura project. In my view the Promethean actually intervened during the attack on the Futura project and actually managed to fight off the worst of the infection, what we are left with are the Lost as they are now which, if you ask me, is tons better than having the next generation of human beings come in with built in Basilisk hacks and exsurgent varii. Also keep in mind that the Lost that are player characters are those that made it out. As products and property of Cognite I am certain that the company kept some of the other cases for further study in some Ultraviolet rated simulspace or simply in cold storage under lock and key. What I mean to say by this is that the Lost who people play are the mild cases. The really bad cases, the really dangerous ones, are still in a shockproof case somewhere in Cognite labs.

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Sat, 2011-09-24 00:11

Re-Laborat Re-Laborat's picture

Re: Extrapolation of the Futura Project

I haven't devoted a great deal of thought to this, but the things that I [i]thought of[/i] when initially reading about the Lost were Orson Scott Card's [u]Ender's Game[/u] and Neal Stephenson's [u]The Diamond Age[/u]. No doubt there are myriad other stories and novels with similar tropes that I just haven't glommed onto. The idea of 'feral children' resulting from some secret super-soldier or cultural experiment isn't exactly new.

Sat, 2011-09-24 10:10

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Extrapolation of the Futura Project

A good inspiration for a Lost character and her growth would be Saeba "Glass Heart" Xiang Yin, from Hojo Tsukasa's manga ANGEL HEART. At least in the first 10 volumes or so. She also display a good Real World Naiveté at first

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Mon, 2012-08-27 07:59

Jane the Bane Jane the Bane's picture

Project Futura certainly

Project Futura certainly sparks several associations: for me, it was Firefly's "River Tam"-arc: a genius teenager who has been imbued with psi-powers (and psychoses) by a secret project, and is now fleeing from those who'd seek to hunt her down. There's also Kaidan Alenko from "Mass Effect" with his faulty implants and his traumatic memories of the first biotic "school", telling you that his headaches are the best side effect you could hope for (as many other children were driven mad or died).

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Tue, 2012-08-28 01:26

Decivre

My view of it was that the

My view of it was that the simulspaces were based on post-fall habitats and colonies. Likely modeled in a manner that would make the children more easily integrated into Consortium society. As for nurture, I picture well-trained caregivers within the simulspace, alongside advanced empathic AI working with the children in order to try and give them a good environment. When murders occurred, evidence was wiped (relatively easy in a virtual world), and the witnesses were also restored from backup. I don't think the Fall was hidden from the children. These kids needed to integrate into society easily, so it would have been hard to do so without giving them at least a slice of modern history and culture. Don't know about the punishments down the line, but I'm sure that they (alongside the inevitable discovery of the murders as well as the Watts-Macleod strain) contributed heavily to the madness that the Lost cope with.

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